OCR deputy registrars arrested

  • CIB had earlier arrested 12 persons in connection with the multi-million rupees scam

Kathmandu, September 27

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority has arrested two deputy registrars of the Office of Company Registrar in connection with illegal ownership transfer of immovable property worth around Rs 700 million.

Joint Secretary Rameshwor Dangal, CIAA spokesperson, said deputy registrars Dharmaraj Rokaya and Gangadhar Paudel were taken into custody from Babar Mahal yesterday.

“We arrested the duo for allegedly transferring property ownership of Shankar Electrical Industries Pvt Ltd to someone else without the presence of Ram Niranjan Jatiya, the only shareholder and promoter of the company. An investigation into the case is under way,” he informed.

Earlier, in the first week of September, the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police had arrested 12 members of the forgery racket for trying to defraud Jatiya of the property worth around Rs 700 million. The suspects of the forgery crime were Rajan Prasad Lamsal, 45, of Makwanpur; Niraj Kumar Manandhar, 40, of Kathmandu; Jeet Bahadur Magar, 33, of Ramechhap; Punya Prasad Kharel, 40, of Morang; Raj Kumar Tamang, 40, of Kavre; Himal Maharjan, 31, and Chiribabu Maharjan, 55, of Kathmandu; Amrit Thapa Mahar, 28, of Bara; and assistant registrars Narayan Prasad Pokharel and Umeshman Joshi, and technical employees Ashish Maharjan and Pushpakala Rai of the OCR.

CIB said Rajan, Neeraj, Jeet Bahadur and Punya Prasad were the prime suspects of the multi-million rupees fraud. The gang forged government documents posing Jeet Bahadur as Jatiya of India, who currently resides in Chundevi of Kathmandu, and were found collecting advance money from prospective customers for the sale of lands registered in the name of that company.

The lands, which the gang was preparing to sell, are located in Baluwatar and Satungal of Kathmandu, Myagdi and Nuwakot, and worth around Rs 700 million.

The lands include three ropanis in Baluwatar and 15 ropanis in Satungal. Jeet Bahadur, who had been working as a helper in the house of Jatiya for the past 16 years, stole the documents related to his master’s company and got Rajan and Niraj to forge the documents. After counterfeiting the documents, Jeet Bahadur posed as Jatiya and submitted an application to the OCR stating that ‘the Indian national had sold all the shares of the company to him’ with the objective of selling the lands registered in the name of the company.